I was a prep athlete Barry Sollenberger never knew about. Certainly not his loss as things turned out.

To my benefit, however,  I ended up learning about and knowing the man so revered in the state when it comes to athletics and prep history without being an athlete of consequence.

My discovery of the omnipresent Barry began shortly after I was cut down in my athletic prime in the fall of 1972 (freshman year at Kingman High School) due to a fractured foot playing football. A hefty lineman fell on said foot during practice just a few days after I delivered a game-changing, electrifying 55-yard punt return touchdown against rival Lake Havasu City. My Bulldog teammates and I prevailed that night, 16-6.

The injury dampened my desire to play football and I focused on basketball -- the sport I preferred and I imagined I excelled. I missed half the hoops season rehabbing that year.  I wasn't the same in basketball, either. The reality may have been other kids my age got better. And perhaps I had peaked. Historians can delve into that if they like.

The next three years, having relocated due to my father's job transfer from Kingman to Flagstaff, I was hellbent on becoming a scribe.I enrolled at Coconino High, site of Saturday's revitalization of the Sollenberger Classic. Took journalism classes. Wrote for the sports staff of the school newspaper. Upon arriving at Coconino in the summer of 1973,  I was recruited by my first math teacher at the school to be part of Coconino football''s stat crew on Friday nights. That teacher, Tim Painter, noticed my interest in sports and surmised some level of talent/competence. 

This was the heyday for football at Coconino. The Panthers won state championships two years in a row -- my sophomore and junior years (1974 and 1975). Coconino's marquee player at the time was Ray Smith, a quarterback-running back who drew a lot of attention. He went on to star at NAU and ironically became a long-time head coach at Kingman HS.

Painter, as it turned out, was a conduit of info to this guy named Barry. I don't remember if the last name Sollenberger was mentioned at the time. Painter was a stickler, as math teachers are, for getting the numbers right. Barry collected our info on Ray. We delivered.

Fast forward a decade later and I'm writing for the Mesa Tribune. For the next two decades and for some time before I arrived at the the paper, there was a spring/summer ritual. It was Barry calling on the phone or visiting the Tribune office. He would saunter into the office during those months scouring our photo files for pictures for his magazine. The paper got a free ad for our trouble. We'd talk about how things were going. Who and and what teams would be the ones to watch the coming season. Never a dull moment.

A few years before he passed in June of 2005, I got to visit his apartment and peer in awe of its decor --wall-to-wall high school press clippings, photos, you name it. It was a prep library unequaled in Arizona for sure -- constructed via the insatiable desire and mission of Barry Sollenberger.